I'm from SF. People should realize that politics in this town (and Berzerkeley) are infused with an entire cottage industry of lunatics and freaks. Watch SFGO

I'm from SF. People should realize that politics in this town (and Berzerkeley) are infused with an entire cottage industry of lunatics and freaks. Watch SFGOV public access to see what I mean. People sing songs, rant, dress up in weird costumes, it's a little slice of a Fellini movie. Even if tech folks suddenly got bit by the community bug they're not going to be able to dialog with people who have basically NO interest in real working politics because they are simply using the public sphere to project their hang-ups and obsessions. Crazy people who want attention make up too much of the political scene out here. Basically SF is one giant open-air insane asylum. This is where you end up if no place else in the country (or world) has a niche for you and your particular weird. Now all these fresh-faced, well-scrubbed tech workers are flooding in and displacing the nuts, who have nowhere else to go. Of course the nuts (and brother/sister/sophont I am one of the nuts) are upset. Unless the techies can somehow develop the compassion for and tolerance of, say, Mother Teresa, for weird freaky shit they just aren't going to be able to engage with the old school Bay Area culture. And I don't think it's fair to expect them to. Unfortunately, this means that the "gentrification" will proceed apace until SF has become the new, uh, Portland? Seattle? San Jose? Some other not-so-weird city anyhow.